Rooples Booples

Soul Extraction

As the party progressed into the sewers, Lyra looked around, disturbed more by the lack of visibility than the smell. Not sure if we'll be pursued, but if so, we'll be sitting ducks. Blackness aside, the quiet caverns would carry echoes pretty far, and the twists and turns of the sewers would do well to hide would-be attackers. Now whether those attackers would be ThysenKrüpp thugs, or the mutant freaks that popular legends spoke of, it didn't really matter--in either case, the group needed to watch themselves.

"Alright, hold up guys," Lyra whispered to the group. "I know we're in a bit of a hurry here, but between the shit visibility and the fact that this fucking place is so quiet that one misstep is gonna be heard by everyone within a mile, I think we should take our time. Y'know, watch our steps, make sure we're not walking right into a wall--or a trap, for that matter."

With that, Lyra brandished Bianca, and started looking through the scope. "On that note," she added, with the slightest hint of an exasperated sigh in her speech, "I think I'll use Bianca's scope to scout ahead a bit. Getting stabbed from behind is one thing, but it'd be really embarrassing to just waltz into a frontal assault." As she was saying this, her world went black again, briefly, before flashing into the blues, reds, and yellows of thermal vision, as she calmly--well, mostly calmly--surveyed the passage in front of them.

Soul Extraction

Fairy tale tango with a semi, huh? Damn, Lyra thought, lucky I didn't get cybernetic mods back in my Rat days. Still, better than the skyscraper alternative, I guess. More romantic, too.

She turned to Jhona, now walking down the tunnel, patting his... sword? He has a sword? Well, this just got a lot more interesting. Shame if I do my job right he won't be needing it. Hopefully.

She started for the tunnel, as her helmet's HUD whirred to life, what sensors were still active after two years of jury-rigging coming online and feeding her information--ambient temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction (unsurprisingly nothing given the whole inside-a-building situation), dataport connection. As her helmet was trying (and failing) to register some of the more advanced systems that the armor had back in the day, she walked forward at a steady pace to try and keep up with the others, as Jhona asked a pretty nervously-worded question.

Poor bastard, she thought. Even if his dad was presumably a ThysenKrüpp shit-for-brains, still had to hurt to lose him. Between that and being trusted to a bunch of strangers? Shit... She decided it was probably for the best to answer his question.

"Well," she said, "you think this is awkward, you should've been there when Quacky and I met. I just kinda stumbled into him after taking a pop rocket without any armor--damn thing grazed me, but given those bullets are the size of a bloody freight train, I still kinda stumbled and fell onto Quacky with the left side of my abdomen looking like something out of a cheap horror flick. He didn't even flinch. Just whipped out the booze--for anesthetic," and then, under her breath, "I still associate the taste of scotch with getting shot, actually," before continuing, "and he just started working on me on a barroom table of all things. I think I tried to make small talk about the... weather, I think? While, mind you, he was stopping my dumb ass from bleeding out." She chucked a bit, despite herself, and despite the horrible situation she may or may not have been making small-talk to avoid thinking about.

"Anyway, on a more serious note," she said as she took Bianca from her back into her arms, "what do you guys figure the odds of us running into danger are? I feel like brandishing Bianca here," as she patted her rifle fondly, "out in the open may be a bit of a bad idea, but at the same time, the lines between friend and foe seem... dubious at best. Pretty sure we were jumped by gang-bangers and ThysenKrüpp, so I feel like it may be wise for me to hold up the rear a bit and maybe... 'silence' anyone who looks like they're gunna try to pull a gun on us."

Soul Extraction

Lyra wasn't paying much attention to Jhona, or to the large bag that was given to her. In fact, she wasn't really paying attention to much of anything other than the one thing Alfred had said that made the blood in her veins turn to ice.

He knows my fucking name. How does he know my fucking name?

He seemed to be connected to ThysenKrüpp, so that could explain it--but then why not apprehend her? And why that thing about "doing us proud?" No, he had to be a Rat, that was the only other way. But either way, how the Hell did he recognize her? She paid good money to disappear, and either the Rats, ThysenKrüpp, or both had her figured out anyway. She hoped it was the former; the only real reason she avoided the Rats was to absolutely minimize the odds of ThysenKrüpp tracking her down, but it wouldn't be the end of the world to reestablish contact with them--well, and ThysenKrüpp had already gotten her, apparently, whether or not they knew who she was.

Then another thing dawned on her--her gear was hidden at her place. Not just in her place, but behind a false wall in her (code-locked) room. Her mind was racing now. Bloody Hell, my damn safehouse is compromised. Was everyone there OK? There were 10 other people there last she checked, and they were good people.

If anyone laid a finger on one of my tenants, I will fucking kill them.

She shook her head and looked around. Alfred had just left the room. She needed to get her ass in gear, especially if she wanted to make use of her gear. Right then, she thought, I've just gotta put all of this shit outta my mind for now. All that matters right now is gearing up and getting out of here--it doesn't matter how the old man knew my name, and the only way I'll be able to make it back to my place alive is by escorting this... Jhona? May as well not waste any time.

With that, she reached into her bag, and found a familiar rifle. It was definitely Bianca: the black synthetic stock riddled with tally-marks, the aftermarket barrel extension and the little switch on the side that prepared it to accept different ammo types. She smiled, far more fond of that gun than she knew was healthy. Then, she turned her attention to her armor. Should take Ronnie's mods a bit to reset... may as well make sure I'm not going into the fray in civilian clothes.

So she started to go through the oft-repeated motions of donning her armor: blackened metal and kevlar, complete with a big-ass kevlar-lined hooded coat that helped compensate for some of the more... haphazard maintenance that had to suffice once she left ThysenKrüpp. As she did so, she turned to the redheaded young man. "Jhona, right?" She grinned, trying her best to be somewhat hospitable to her ticket out of there. "Name's Lyra. Good to meet you. Sorry if we seem a bit wound up, but, given the circumstances, I think it's pretty justified, no?" Within about half a minute, she stood completely armored, helmet in her hands and Bianca slung across her back--years of practice had made putting her armor on second-nature to her. With that, she turned toward what she presumed to be the exit. "Well, I'm ready to go when you guys are. How are your mods, Ronnie? Given what we just went through, I'm gonna take a wild guess and say they probably feel like you fell off of a skyscraper."

Soul Extraction

Lyra's vision flashed back to normal, as she looked at the... butler... the BUTLER? Really? We're going from ThyesenKrüpp to a sodding Butler? She was a bit confused, to say the least. Still, his demeanor suggested imminent threat. Maybe ThysenKrüpp was tied up in all of this. In any case, the old bastard was offering a chance to escape whatever shit she'd gotten herself into, so she didn't really have much choice but to cooperate.

"Calm down, Quacky," she said quietly, "if this finely-dressed gentleman wanted to kill us, I'm sure he would have by now."

"Especially," she added, almost under her breath, "if that was a ThysenKrüpp gun I heard before we were out."

She turned to the butler. "In any case, I can assure you we didn't kill your 'Hemingway.' I may not like ThysenKrüpp or its various Dev-District lackeys, but I'd like to think I'm FAR too smart to knife one of their guys in the open, then drag him into a seedy bar while I have a drink. Don't think anyone but a Teether would be insane enough to pull that."

Soul Extraction

Lyra's eyes opened slowly, twitching in-sync with the throbbing of the pain in her back. She slowly turned around (as much as she could, given the circumstances) to survey her surroundings, her mind still hazy. What the hell happened?

And then it came to her--the noises she'd heard as she ducked for cover from the street thugs' sloppy gunmanship. Not just that static, but that unmistakable, high-pitched whistling, a sound she had grown accustomed to hearing when she worked for ThysenKrüpp. A fucking smart rifle, she thought, as her eyes widened in horror at the implications. ThysenKrüpp was mixed up in all of this. Two years trying to run away from her mistakes, only for those very same mistakes to ambush her in a seedy bar in the middle of the Gutter. She broke out in a silent panic, her breaths coming quickly and raggedly, her mind a frantic cacophony of worries and frustration and anger and terror. It was overwhelming, far too much to bear, endless worries and possibilities assaulting her mind. She couldn't take it. She opened her mouth to scream, and...

She exhaled. She shook her head. No, she thought, panic won't get me anywhere. I just have to stay calm and try and take as much control as I can of this shitstorm. She forced her breathing back to a calm, steady pace.

Well, may as well use this, she thought, maybe make them regret fronting me the money for this mod. With that, she focused, and her vision when black for a fraction of a second before returning in a series of blues, yellows, oranges, and reds, as she gazed at the door to see just how many guards were waiting to blow the rag-tag group's heads off if they managed to escape.

Soul Extraction

As soon as the light had come--blinding and white, like looking into the sun--Lyra knew what it was. The deafening roar that followed a split second later only confirmed her suspicions.

"Oh shit!" Instinctively, she pulled her knife from her side and tried her best to stumble into a corner to make sure she could only be attacked from the front. Not the best defense, but better than nothing, and better than just standing around waiting to be killed. But no attack came. Somehow, that only made her less sure of her own safety.

This isn't right, she thought. There should've been gunshots, tasers, some teether hopped-up on chems with a knife jumping us by now. Nobody wastes a bloody flashbang on a prank, or even a robbery. Right?

As her senses returned, she looked around the bar, cautiously surveying her surroundings. That's when she noticed the body. Her eyes widened. That wasn't the same Rat who got offed--hell, he wasn't a rat at all. In fact, his clothes looked straight out of... the development district?

Son of a bitch!

Immediately, she started toward the door, hearing Niklas and Quackshot as she did. "Quacky, I'm sure everyone's fine, but we're not gonna be if we stay here much longer. I'm with Niklas on this one: we need to leave. Now." She shook her head. She hated getting caught off-guard, and she hated not knowing what the fuck was going on, but all of that was taking a back-seat to her instincts right now, and her instincts were screaming at her to get the hell out of that bar. Meanwhile, her conscience was telling her not to leave these poor sods behind. She turned to face them. "Listen, if you guys want, you can follow me back to my place--pretty under-the-radar of most folks, you could lay low for a while. But we need to go now, alright? I don't know what the fuck just happened, but between the flashbang, the corpse-trade, and the dead dev-district fuck, I don't really think I want to know."

Soul Extraction

Lyra shook her head.

"I've had a few tenants who used to run with the Rats," she said, "but it's a pretty big gang, Quacky. Odds of any of 'em knowing this specific guy"--she motioned to the poor bastard being used as a very macabre marionette--"aren't too good, I'm afraid."

Still, even if she didn't know who the bastard was, she was curious. Can genetic mods bring someone back to life? And how the hell did a dead Rat get a hold of that kinda mod? Affording a big-ass hand-cannon is one thing, but that? She shook her head. This just reeks of trouble.

Soul Extraction

"No," Lyra said slowly, as she cautiously approached the body, "they sure as bloody Hell don't." She shook her head. "I mean, back in their heyday maybe five, ten years ago, sure, they'd have had the kinda cash for that, even if they weren't the types to need big guns too often. But now?"

As she said this, she turned to Niklas.
"Sorry I didn't clear out, Nick, but Quacky here"--she motioned to the masked doctor--"has saved my ass more than once, and he's saved countless other poor sods as well. I can't very well turn my back on him if he's in danger. And I've got a sinking feeling that this whole situation," she said as she pointed at the corpse, "seems like it's gonna be dangerous."

Besides, she thought, staring at the revolver, I kinda wanna know how the Hell a Rat, in this day and age, can afford one of those. Sure, I got my rifle as a Rat, but that was back when they made a helluva lot more money. Something isn't right here.

Soul Extraction

Lyra looked down at the candy next to her drink, then quickly removed it from its golden wrapper and placed it in her mouth. It did taste like honey--a fairly welcome change of pace from the burning taste of her drink. "Thanks, Quacky," she said. "I appreciate your concern, but it's nothing big. Just..." she sighed. "Money troubles. Just another part of living in the Gutter--well, unless you're Mr. Pinky, but that's beside the point. I'm sure I'll get the money somehow."

After all, she thought, there's always some sick fuck in this district that needs a bullet in their head, bounty or no, and plenty of them aren't terribly short on credits.

"Just gonna have to wait for opportunity to come knocking, right?"

Soul Extraction

Lyra sat at the bar, fidgeting nervously as she nursed her drink--a mixture of cinnamon whiskey, spiced rum, and ginger beer (the concoction didn't have a name, but she liked to refer to it as "Dragonfire Draught," given that it tasted more or less like burning). She had just returned from the Plug's back room, and was disappointed with what she found. No new bounties, she thought, her face twisting ever so slightly into a frown, that's two weeks without a hit. I should be able to go another month with the creds I have, but after that...

Her train of thought was cut off suddenly, as a commotion erupted at the other end of the bar. Lyra turned her head just in time to see two Bubblers hauled out by the Dustin brothers, and watched as the remaining gangers tried (and failed) to act tough on their way out. Serves them right, she thought. She never did like the Bubblers--human trafficking was a very shitty thing to do on its own, and more than enough reason for Lyra to hate the Bubblers, but add the cheery and rambunctious attitude that they approached it with, and you had yourself a recipe for grade-A creepy.

As the bar settled down, she took a moment to look around at the others. She saw Niklas and the Dustins first, returning to their business after dealing with the... undesirables. Nice enough folks, she thought, especially for the Gutter. Not saints by any stretch of the imagination, but trustworthy, and a hell of a lot kinder than the likes of the Bubblers or Die Glücklich at any rate. Then, she noticed Dr. Quackshot sauntering up to the bar and nodding politely before asking Niklas a question and taking a seat next to her. Quacky, though, she thought, might just be a saint. The guy's a bit strange, sure, but he's borderline selfless. Medical care in exchange for rumors is a rate that few in the Gutter were able to pass up, and Lyra had sent many of her boarders to Quackshot in the past (he had even operated on her once or twice, after some of her... spottier bounties). Plus, even if he does seem to take great pains to conceal his identity... well, so do I, so I can't really fault him too much for being suspicious there.

"I'm sure everything's fine, Quacky," she said, with a reassuring grin replacing the slight frown on her countenance. "If Pinky offed every bartender that turned his lackeys out for getting too rough, there wouldn't be a bar left in the entire goddamn Gutter," and then, with a chuckle, "and then it'd really be hell."